Born into a wealthy family, Arthur Luiz Piva lived in Paris during several periods of his life. He was influenced by the gestural techniques of Tachisme and by the rigorous organization of Constructivism. In the 1960s, he began to cut apart his watercolors, using the fragments in collages on various types of support. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he produced a series known as “doormats,” which includes Untitled [Untitled] (1982). The piece comprises several square plates of black metal connected over the surface of a sisal (natural fiber) doormat, painted with gray acrylic paint. Piza develops his work from black rectangular fragments, which contrast with the lighter, dotted background, creating a play between the two textures. An abstract body of cells stands out over the delimited space of the acrylic box that frames the piece, agglomerating itself into a three-dimensional, saturated web. These fragments appear as if they were trying to break off from the two-dimensional plane, as if parts of a mosaic coming undone. Piza also engages an optical dimension, evidenced by the variability of these fragments’ shadows and the sisal fiber beneath the room’s lighting, creating different rhythms and contrasts of gray tones. In this relief one notes a hallmark of Piza’s work: the tension created by a desire for order that never materializes. Although they refer in some way to a sense of series or repetition, the small and irregular particles end up combining and coexisting in varied directions.
— Guilherme Giufrida, assistant curator, MASP, 2018
